Mon, February 2, 2004

This Sunday, after the boys finished playing their little ball game, CBS kicked off Survivor: All-Stars, the new season of the immensely popular reality show, this time featuring a cast made up exclusively of former Survivor contestants. (I keed – it was actually a rather compelling game once it got started, around the last four minutes of the second time period, or "quarter." Mostly, I was cheering for the Patriots because Arksie predicted a blowout victory for them and I figured it would generate a lot of publicity for our site if he were correct, in the reflected glow of which I could bask. But also, I can't fucking stand the Panthers.) CBS, no stranger to "flashy" displays of "titillating" content, began the new season with an obvious attempt to grab some viewers away from Thursday night competitor Threat Matrix by featuring heavy military security around the arrival of the contestants on their island. It was Probst's assertion that the security was there to prevent any secrets of the game leaking out, but come on. I suppose it's possible that there are fans who are so intent on spoiling the surprise for themselves that they obsess over ferreting out the details of the show ahead of time but has Burnett really had any problem in past seasons with people actually trying to land on the island? Aren't most of the leaks committed on the Internet by staffers of the show?

After that silliness, the competitors hop ashore and start the process of initiating a new Survivor season. This process consists of: a) extolling the jubilant virtues of teamwork and making cooperative decisions about how to build a shelter, and b) after five minutes of that, bickering incessantly amongst themselves in a futile and pointless power battle. By now, I believe I've made it clear that I feel the concept of a Survivor cast of former Survivor people is a fundamentally terrible idea. It fails to be a reality show any more, because these people are all celebrities now. Some of them have been in Playboy. Some of them did guest spots on Becker! Casting a reality show with celebrities is never a good idea, as Celebrity Mole has taught us well. (Okay, all of us except Corbin Bernsen. He always was slow on the uptake.) It's like replacing the cast of Scrubs with a handful of Wal-Mart greeters. The novelty wears off fast. Besides, the only good Survivor alumni are too busy starring in Rob Schneider movies and marrying football players to re-visit their reality-TV roots and, as with most things in life, it's just pointless without Colleen Haskell. However, once again, the way it works is that CBS does what it wants without asking my opinion. (One more time, and I'm going to stop being surprised.)

What will be fascinating is seeing how (or whether) old strategies are modified to adapt to the new format of the game. It's undeniably a very different strategic landscape. Everyone has played the game before, to different degrees of success. So, theoretically, most of the old tricks won't work again. For Richard Hatch, this doesn't seem to matter. He's immediately arrogant and naked, just like before, but fortunately in slightly better shape. What's chilling about his apparent apathy towards his team's evident enmity is that we all thought he would go down in flames for being a smug prick the first time, and he won the damn thing. Now, as Lex rightly points out, he won the first season – nobody had ever played before, so it was a very unique game. Still, he won it, and he did it while being aloof and obstreperous. So, who's to say it can't work again? In fact, if he helps them win immunity one or two more weeks in a row, it will probably give him enough time to get his hooks into a few of the group, ride his way to the merge, and conquer the game. (Shudder.) Shii Ann is already showing signs of wanting to keep him around, just because she fancies herself a mental powerhouse in this game and she thinks it would be ironic and arouse the ire of her teammates. She seems to have forgotten that for all her supposed intellectual superiority, she managed to alienate everyone on her team the last time around and then immediately walk into the most obvious twist/trap the show has ever set. What a champion of intelligence!

One immediately appreciable difference in the All-Star show is the degree to which everyone treats one another collegially. Now, I don't mean congenially; I'm referring to the way they all immediately act like "Hey, we've all been here before. We know how it works, so let's cut the shit." Upon arriving at camp, Mugo Mugo is immediately right there with the teamwork and collaboration and asking everyone's opinion to make sure nobody's left out. When some preliminary strategy occurs, everyone is all smiles and the team discusses it openly. The mood seems to be, "Hey," (For some reason, in my head, they always start with "Hey.") "None of us can trust anybody here; we're all going to lie and manipulate and play only for ourselves, but at least when we're together as a group we can be cooperative." I think that attitude comes from spending time on the island in the past and realizing that most of every day is just lying around killing time. If they reserve their backbiting and yelling for just a few minutes a day in front of the cameras, they can maximize their efficiency. Similarly, when the various factions within Saboga start lobbying for Rupert's vote, they do it within full view of each other. "What's the point of hiding it?" they seem to say. (Sorry, "Hey, what's the point of hiding it?") Everybody knows that these conversations will be taking place, so why not admit it openly and salvage a little credibility for later?

By the way, during this week's episode, I was subjected to two movie trailers. (Thankfully, only two; the Super Bowl was positively overrun with them, and they were universally awful. Troy? Please! Enough already! We understand that you can make a lot of digital extras! And, Van Helsing? Is this the long-awaited follow-up to Van Wilder that I've been hearing about? And since when has Kate Beckinsale gone irreversibly goth? Somebody stop her before she and a down-on-his-luck Chris Kattan adapt those Asrael Abyss sketches into a feature film.) The first trailer in the Survivor hour was for Miracle, which just makes me sad. First it was Denzel Washington, then Dennis Quaid. Now Kurt Russell. Disney is co-opting all of our better mid-career actors and thrusting them into sugary sports movies about triumph and determination. What hath Emilio wrought? The second was for Eurotrip, and I wore out the slow-mo button on my TiVo remote.

Anyway, the producers of the show have largely split up contestants who appeared together on previous versions of the show, or in cases where that couldn't be done, they at least separated anyone who had a cordial relationship the last time around. Interestingly, they've split up the winners of previous contests completely unevenly, placing two each with the Saboga and Mugo Mugo teams and none with the Chapera group. (Of course, as of tonight, Saboga is down to one.) I don't really know the point of this, but I suppose it provides a sort of "control group" for the experiment of whether winning Survivor is really a skill or just kind of a fluke. I would be interested to know if anybody has read the John Nash book that Probst was shilling at the end of Survivor: Thailand. Anyway, people have been divided up in such a way as to avoid the immediate renewal of past alliances and relationships, and I wonder if that will really play out the same way the producers expect. After all, by necessity, everyone who participated in an alliance on a past show must have broken that alliance at some point, unless that alliance represented the final two. So, it's entirely likely that previously allied contestants might have less inclination to team up than relative strangers. (With the possible exception of Amber and Jerri. I'd have thought that Amber would regard Jerri suspiciously after being her pawn the last time, but she clearly returns to those old habits of shutting off her brain – thinking is hard! – and following the advice of some moron the moment Rob M approaches her.)

What's curious about this is that it's assumed by the producers that if contestants who were previously friendly are placed on separate teams, the bond within the team will replace the bond they shared on the earlier show. Whereas I predict that, because of the changes in the strategic makeup of the show, the "team jingoism" mentality that usually takes over will be much less of a factor this season. Plus, the teams are only six people, so they're either going to combine sooner or thin out faster, both of which scenarios lead to less time to bond with your teammates.

I think a very important part of developing a personal strategy in this season's game will be to determine why the other contestants have returned. Different people are back for different reasons. (People join the show as first-timers for different reasons, too, but those reasons cover a narrower spectrum – money, TV exposure, thrill – and people seem more personally invested in their reasons this time around.) And, unlike any previous season, those reasons may have to do with other competitors. For the first time, not everyone on the island is a stranger to everyone else. I believe Tina when she says she just enjoyed the experience – or maybe she needs time off from the kids. Are the other winners back for the same reason, or do other ambitions come into play? Are all of the non-winners back for revenge, or are some just back for a second chance? (Is there a difference?) The rabid ambitions of comeuppance expressed by Jenna L seem a little single-minded, but that may just be a strategic move. Either way, Probst buys it, and asks some stupid questions about whether non-winners would want to see a winner win again. It doesn't make sense to ask non-winners if they want a winner to win. They want themselves to win, and they are by definition not winners. Besides, at least at this stage of the game, the numbers are against the winners, so it's kind of a silly point. The main reason I suspect that Jenna's not entirely sincere in her desire to eliminate past winners is that she targets Tina first instead of Ethan. I don't know all of the previous winners, but I would venture to say that if any one of them won by accident more than skill, it would be Tina. Clearly, Ethan is the greater threat as a past winner, but Jenna keeps him around, probably for the same reason that women on this show always keep relatively fit young guys around – they mistakenly believe that they need the men to do the fishing and win the challenges, even as they decry the same chauvinist mentality from the guys. If contestants can get a pretty accurate idea of the real reasons their competitors have for returning to the game, they can use that information to manipulate the other players. Sadly, this sort of thing offers an advantage to contestants who are good at reading and manipulating people – like Hatch.

Jerri (who prepared for her return to Survivor by appearing in Playboy and on UPN's The Surreal Life) seems wary of her reputation as a bitch. She says that she intends to adopt a different strategy in the hope of a better outcome for this game. Hatch, however, is remaining the same – if not more so. (Yes, more the same.) His strategy here is probably the better one. Besides the fact that I must grudgingly admit that he is clearly brighter than she, his approach will also make him seem predictable, while hers will make her seem insincere. When the game really starts, Hatch can make the necessary changes to his gameplay, and catch everyone off guard. Meanwhile, everyone will have been eyeing Jerri suspiciously the whole time, which leaves her little room to make any sudden changes. Watching Hatch again after a few years, it's obvious just how much Johnny Dickwad fashioned himself after Hatch, and it's sickening because of just how far Johnny Hatchclone managed to get in the Pearl Islands season.

Starting off, I don't know some of the contestants because in the interest of sanity I skipped a few seasons of Survivor. I only know 11 of the original eighteen, and I'm having to learn about the rest – already I like Jenna M a lot for saying "We're morons for signing up for this again," and I immediately dislike Rob M for adopting the despicable practice of whining about the disorganization of others in order to make himself feel smart (and look stupid) instead of pitching in and offering constructive guidance to feel helpful (and look smart). Also, he actually complains about how difficult the conditions are. Hello, pal? Remember how you were on Survivor before? Seems like that might have clued you in. Bitchy, argumentative morons like this are excellent to have on Survivor, because they hold extremely high opinions of themselves despite contributing nothing, and they're great fun to vote off – plus, once in a great while, one of them will quit the game and get a hearty tongue-lashing from Probst.

POLL:

All-Star Break

The best part of the show so far:

	Hatch's nudity – top that, Janet Jackson!
	Amber's off-the-shoulder bikini straps – yum!
	RUPERT!!!
	Sue Hawk's one-woman show: "Otter Poop and Microbes, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Snake That Ate the Rat"
	The TribCon Treehouse – I have fantasies of Probst in a Monchichi outfit.

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